Living Rather Than Wallowing

Crazy Prednisone Dreams

Granted, I’m in the process of tapering it off because my face looks like a damn jackolantern…but the dreams still continue and probably will for a little while longer.

A couple days ago I woke up in panic complete with flailing arms because I very vividly dreamed that there was a strange man standing over me. Awhile back, I dreamed that Oprah was the mother of Michael Jackson’s children.

Um. Okay.

I can’t figure out where the Prednisone dreams come from- normally I can trace my dreams to events of the day or tv shows I watch before bed. But Prednisone dreams are just all over the place as far as rhyme or reason is concerned.

Last night, I dreamt that I was on an episode of ER. And a specific episode to boot.

Strange…I haven’t watched ER since probably high school. I used to watch Grey’s Anatomy but am more inclined to watch House now because the doctors on Grey’s seem to always kill their patients whereas patients on House tend to survive the episode. It’s just a quirky personal preference stemming from the fact that I have health problems and don’t want to give myself a complex about having to go to the doctor. But I’d still love to know why I dreamt about a very specific episode of a show I haven’t seen since probably 1998!

The plot is this: a patient comes in requesting an amputation of a leg (I think) and they put him on a psych hold. Another patient is brought in by ambulance after having an accident with a chainsaw and, of course, brings said chainsaw. One thing leads to another and the psych hold/would be amputee commandeers the chain saw and becomes an actual amputee. Everyone bemoans the whole tragedy but the new amputee is fine and there is some discourse about how the patient felt a disconnect with the leg he so unceremoniously lopped off.

So I woke up and thought…well, that was random. And my next thought was…I totally get it though.

I sure as hell feel a disconnect from some of my joints. Especially when I’m flaring like I have been. I think it makes it feel like less of a betrayal to me although I do still feel that. A lot. And what if the patient had some excruciating condition on that leg that was completely unresponsive to medication and removing the leg would end the pain? I realize that it was a psychological thing in the actual episode but taken from a pain perspective, boy do I understand.

Seriously, if someone told me that I could stop my RA pain forever by just removing said joint, I know I would seriously consider.

I also know that, in my case, I would have to lop off joint after joint and would end up resembling the Black Knight from Monty Python with WAY MORE than ‘just a scratch.’ And that even then, I would still have the fatigue and everything else to contend with. Also, I would probably end up with vicious phantom RA pain because that is how my luck tends to run.

That would really suck!

Wow. This has ended up a little more ‘dark’ than I intended. I’m fine- I’ve actually had a very good weekend. I just thought it was an interesting scenario. Thoughts?

Here’s to hoping tonight’s dreams feature subject matter that is a little bit more warm and fuzzy!

I never had strange dreams when I was on prednisone (granted, for only something like 21 days), but I have been on medication before that caused night terrors. Now that was fun – not!!!! Got to the point where I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep…sounds mundane but it was seriously terrifying.